So if I understand correctly, the council basically just bought a bunch of really expensive rental bikes, right?

I bought my lightly used bike from Stanford's Campus Bike Shop for $250. Maybe the council can reimburse me? That $160,000 would have bought 639 additional bikes.

Okay, Bay Area Bike Share's station map shows 58 bikes available at the seven stations in Mountain View. Let's assume there are currently two bikes in use for a total of 60 in the system. That means the council paid about $2670 per bike.

Let's imagine that the council told Google, "Here's 160 thousand, buy some more bikes." Assuming that the cost of a Google Bike is $160, that would put a thousand more Google Bikes on the streets. Even if their bikes are officially intended for Google employees, I see a lot of them around town, some of the riders presumably aren't employees.

But let's say people (employees or not) use those extra bikes: well, that removes cars from the road. That's a good thing (plus the riders get some exercise).

Each ride costs the city $19.50. If I promise to not use one of the bikes, will the city pay me just half of that and then we both will be better off. I am willing to accept monthly instead of daily payments. Thank you for your kindness.

Wasteful. They're not being used = people don't want them. So what do we do? Throw another $160K of our tax dollars at it. I don't understand the problem that these are trying to solve.

I was just thinking that I haven't seen one of these being used in a long time, since back when they were a novelty.

As is usually the case, infrastructure is the problem. We need better bike lanes and bike-accessible roadways, to encourage people to feel safer when riding bikes. That being said, I actually really enjoy the rental bikes and use them every so often, as I don't have enough room to store a bicycle myself. But the #1 problem is making it easier, faster, and safer to actually ride a bike around Mountain View.

"If you build it, they will ride": Web Link

Wah wah wah whaaaaaaaa.

Or maybe the Price is Right "You lose" theme:
Boop-boop buh-boop...bwhaaaaa.

I haven't seen the price is right for so long

What a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. Seriously, weren't there other, more pressing items that could have benefitted from that $160,000.000?

Stop wasting our money on programs that are not effective amd/not useful.

Sheesh.

What a huge waste of our (yes, OUR) taxpayer dollars.

Vote NO on the council folk that support this insane expenditure.

Good for Mr. Inks and McAllister....

Bad for the rest.

Wow, who votes for these people? Talk about beating a dead horse. It was dead on arrival as it were...

I bet they didn't have a choice...

Why isn't there any data with this article.

How many bikes are used on a daily basis? Which are the most used stations for pickup? Which are the most used stations for drop off? Are these the same stations? Are most rentals for the minimum time? Are the bikes being maintained well with good tire pressure, etc.? Are bikes being taken and used with Palo Alto bike rentals?

I would have thought that without some type of data analysis a vote on this would make no sense. I would also think that unless the system is improved with more stations at places people may want to go to such as residential neighborhoods to Caltrain and Caltrain to business destinations, then usage will not rise.

@PV Resident - I think we know why this data isn't shared...

@Ken M:

They did have a choice, they could have voted no, like Inks and McAllister did.

Then the 350 annual Bike Share members who use Mountain View bikes would see them disappear in a couple of months. There are around 60 bikes in the system here in Mountain View (just count them at the Bay Area Bike Share website's station map) and according to this previous article:

Web Link

only about a third of the bikes record a ride every day. That's right. There are twenty daily rides. Considering the bikes have no lights, they are only being used during daylight hours, so that works out to one rental every forty minutes or so.

That's so dismal that it essentially has no bearing on taking automobiles off the road.

This bike share program is a complete bust for Mountain View in 2014-2016 and now the residents are on the hook for $160K to support this boondoggle for a few more years.

Apparently, some of the council members have difficulty with simple arithmetic.

Appalling.

Now I'm not the type of person who typically casts a vote for or against a candidate based on one issue, but for sure, I will remember this council vote the next time I assess whether or not someone should be re-elected.

The raw trip data is available on their website, although the latest is from a year ago.

Web Link
Web Link

Waste of taxpayer money. Nice going city council!

The bikes are not free to use. You need to pay a $9 monthly membership then ...if you use it for less 1/2 an hour it is no more cost but 31 min its $4 more dollars after that it $14 an hour. Where can you ride for 29 min and find an approved parking? Not many places thus the low use.

Throwing $160k away is just gosh darn insane.

Is there an "investigative news" section of mv-voice that could put some effort into discovering how the council members who voted to do this are getting paid off?

Seriously (unless something wasn't covered in this article), this is just amazingly obvious corruption. Something stinks.

@DC

Your comments are welcomed, but the pricing is incorrect. The $9 fee is for a one-day pass, not a monthly pass.

Here's the membership rates from the Bay Area Bike Share site:

$9 one day
$30 month
$88 annual "Pacesetter"

The user agreement:

Web Link

defines the overtime fee per ride:

00:01-30:00 $0.00
30:01-60:00 $4.00
60:01-90:00 $11.00
... every additional 30 minutes is an additional $7

So, if you did one-day pass and hope to ride from Mountain View Caltrain to Shoreline Lake and back, that's a ride that's probably about 75-90 minutes (the bikes are clunkers, not lightweight), so that would cost you $20.

Now let's say you need to get to City Hall. Google Maps indicates 0.5 miles, a 10 minute walk. A bike ride might be oh, 4 minutes, but there are probably 5 minutes of bike administration (paying for the one-day pass, checking out and returning the bike). So for a day user, you don't really save any time on a solo trip, and you're out $9.

Even if you are an annual member, the bike admin part still probably takes a couple of minutes. Is it worth it? It apparently is for 350 souls, many of whom (most?) are probably using the system more heavily in other cities like SF or SJ where there is more value and more useful destinations with bike stations.

Let's look at a one-hour ride: $9 daily fee + $4 overtime fee = $13. What's a one-hour rental at Shoreline Lake Boathouse? It's $21 for a beach cruiser (a nicer bike than that Bike Share bikes). But if the city will be subsidizing $19.50 per ride, the true cost is not $13, but $32.50.

Partly of lack of adoption must be attributed to the high cost. In this previous Bike Share article:

Web Link

one reader mentioned that the Vienna bike share system is 1 euro for the registration fee, the first hour is free, and 1 euro for each additional hour. So a two-hour ride in Vienna is 2 euros (about $2.22), whereas a two-hour ride in Mountain View is $27.00.

Bay Area Bike Share is one atrociously expensive rental operation.

Thanks, MV City Council for funding this quixotic, money-sucking boondoggle. Motivate, the Bay Area Bike Share operators, are a for-profit company and they are laughing their way to the bank with $160,000 of Mountain View taxpayer dollars.

Looking at say Vienna as a comparison doesn't make much sense. Vienna, as many other large cities, is aiming for the rental bikes to be attractive for visitors and tourists (not always the same thing).

Mountain View, as Palo Alto, is not going to get tourists to even begin to think of using a bike. We are not tourist destinations. The visitors to these towns who just might use them are more likely to be those with a business or similar appointment and arrive by Caltrain or perhaps taxi or Uber. For this reason, if they are interesting in renting a bike where they arrive, then they also need to be able to drop them off very close to their destination. I can't see this an attractive option for visitors to town as they are not user friendly for their destination. The only other possibility is that they may pay for all day parking in a lot and do not wish to repark several times for their various local destinations. Once again, I can't see this being a viable option for this type of visitor.

If the bikes are geared for residents to use for their lunch dates or downtown appointments then they need to be in the residential neighborhoods, except for one thing, most residents are not at home during the day unless they are seniors, stay at home parents, or work from home. Are these people likely to choose to rent a bike for an errand run? If the bikes are geared towards residents to use to get to their jobs or to public transit, then they need to be in the residential neighborhoods.

As a parent, I know that school kids use bikes to get to school and that bikes can be a problematic issue. These bikes need to be maintained as they are abused in school bike racks and they get stolen (or lost). If rental bikes were in the neighborhoods and at the schools, there is a good chance that some families may opt for these bikes rather than buying an expensive bike which gets damaged, lost or stolen at school. A decent bike for a healthy, fully grown, teen can be expensive in its initial outlay and also expensive in its maintenance. The option of a rental bike could work out cheaper than the upkeep of a personal bike. I feel sure that similar problems exist about leaving a personal bike at a transportation hub.

Once again, a complete overhaul of the rental system and a better vision of who is going to use them and how, would make a great deal of sense in this debate. When the who and how is worked out, then comes the placement of stations to suit the who and how.

What is available in both Mountain View and Palo Alto is not something that would give me a useful option to rent a bike.

Let me say I am bike advocate and support most everything bike related. But, talk about throwing good money after bad! To spend more money on the current implementation of Bike Share is just plain stupid. It was dumb in the first place to implement it as it is, but now they have the data to prove it doesn't work, so either change it or eliminate it.

Who are the model users for the system? Target audience? There are no stations in residential areas, so we can assume that our residents are not the target audience. Most stops are by public transit, so it seems only to serve to bridge transit systems with very short legs. At $9.00 per single use, that costs almost as much as a Caltrain trip to SF. How does this compete with Uber? You can't price this for users based upon what it costs to provision. $88 per year is reasonable, but who would sign up for a year before using it once? We have a FREE shuttle bus now that covers much more of the city than these bikes.

Cut our losses. Swallow your pride and reverse this decision. We are not high enough density to support this yet. Fix it or scrap it.

Seems like we have a solid majority of folks here that believe the council erred in wasting another $160K on this boondoggle. Does anyone have any insight as to why the council made this decision? What about the supporters that kicked and screamed for this system two years ago? Can we hear from them? Ms. Le Fleur?


--------crickets------------

Spending the $160K on new bike lanes instead would have benefitted more residents, encouraged more biking, and be a long term benefit.

[Post removed due to disrespectful comment/off-topic]

@Rossta and @PA Resident make some good point and the end conclusion is this: we know this program is a fiscal failure and the bikes get rarely used by those whom they are intended.

Terminate the program and don't start a new one until there is a clear case for a success and reasonably priced implementation.

The next time I see someone riding one of those blue bikes, I will imagine that rider has an extra twenty dollar bill in their wallet courtesy of the taxpayers of Mountain View.

Hey, council members: I have a bike. Can I get a twenty dollar bill every time I saddle up? No? How about a tenner? I promise I will ride my bike more if you will. You don't even need to garage or maintain it. I'll pick up the tab for maintenance, storage, bike lock and a pleasant sounding bell.

That's disappointing. What a waste of money.

I could, without even trying, think of plenty of ways to better spend that money more successfully ACTUALLY encouraging bike commuting. I'm sure anyone could. This council just does not get it.

A while back (if I recall correctly) there was Council-level talk of making Shoreline more bike friendly to encourage cycling from Caltrain to N Bayshore. Despite the existing trail that serves that purpose- less than 1/4 mile longer ride but no lights and no cars. Didn't seem like the council even knew the trail was there.

Here's the problem-- too many council members using this gig as a stepping stone to higher office (note the current assembly election). They want the talking point-- "I stood up for bike commuting"-- not the effective less exciting policy. Throwing $160k at a CLEARLY failed and poorly designed program is pathetic

Was anyone at the meeting? I'd love to know the sort of reasons that were given, as they knew full well that the program was pretty mush a full belly flop. Do they have plans to improve it? Do they HOPE more will use it? I'd really love to hear the rationale behind this decision.

Sorry for the price errors (Reader)

I think we also forgot the $90 credit charge for a damage deposit which does not get refunded for a week? or two? And thus CC charges added for some.

As a regular bike commuter / utility cyclist (though I also walk, drive, take transit, etc - everything has its strengths and uses), I never managed to actually find a use of the Bikeshare bikes.

The problems:
- Stations are near transit, but not near actual destinations (particularly North Bayshore offices); this means you can't take the train, bike-share to work, bike-share back to the train, and drop the bike off. This would have been really useful, and would cut down on the overfull bike cars on Caltrain
- The bikes are heavy and clumsy - it's like pedaling a tractor
- The bikes have no meaningful lighting - really dangerous at night, also a bad idea during dusk / dawn type hours
- The "extra charges past 30 minutes" make them impractical for lunches / errands
- The payment / reservation system is the sort of horrid clunky IT mess you only see with government systems; it makes the Clipper card look good. (also, why not take Clipper instead of inventing yet another system?)

In short, it's a really poorly thought out system, clearly designed and approved by people who don't actually use a bike as transportation. The $$ would be far better spent on improving bike lanes / markings, maybe a few green lanes, trail improvements, etc.

The *concept* of easy to use / easy to return rental bicycles is great. The *implementation* is significantly worse than not bothering.

@Eric, I very much support the bike lanes on Shoreline. If I worked in NBS, my commute along Shoreline would be almost a mile less than along Steven's Creek Trail. (4.2mi vs. 3.25mi) There are also a few more grade changes along the trail than along Shoreline, which can make a big difference for novice bikers. I also think it's a good thing for bike commuters to be more visible to SOV drivers along Shoreline. If a worker sees many of their peers zipping by standstill traffic, they may be more inspired to hop on a bike.

But the more significant part of the Shoreline Corridor Project (in my opinion) is the reversible bus lane that would allow mass transit to skip the traffic. Adding bike lanes is just a really nice bonus that could come with reworking that corridor.

@bjd-- so, your commute would be about 5 minutes longer. How much infrastructure do you add and how much do you diminish road capacity to save a small subset of commuters 5 minutes (with traffic lights, unless you are proposing MASSIVE infrastructure projects, the trail is probably faster)? Cyclists will in optimal circumstances make up 10% of commuters and less when the weather is poor.

Your personal circumstances aren't the point, either-- for many in town the trail will be the shorter route. More relevant, from CalTrain to any given point in Shoreline, the delta between the Trail and a Shoreline Blvd route is about .4 miles- so, measure that in seconds, not minutes. Spend the money on a resource that will actually add value.

(and there is one bridge of any consequence on that stretch of the trail. Any bike commuter that is stymied by that wont be a bike commuter for long)

I support bike commuting and wish I could partake but solutions have to work within reality and for all parties

So easy to spend (waste) other people's money.

@Eric my commute is 3/4 mile longer on the trail. From 3.25 miles to 4 miles. That's 20% longer (and at least 5 minutes longer) than on Shoreline. On days when I'm in a hurry - maybe half the time - the detours and trade-offs are downright annoying.

When's the last time you took a route to work that was 20% longer than it needed to be? We think long and hard about taking 280 to San Francisco because it's an additional 3 miles (+ 6%). Point is, it's just not a reasonable expectation for goal-oriented behavior. You want people to bike commute? The trail is not for that purpose. The Shoreline Corridor project fills that need.

(BTW Siegel and Showalter know about the trail and use it. Likely Rosenberg also.)

You think long and hard about taking 280, an extra 3 miles? Me thinks you thinks too much.

the stevens creek trail is not usable for commuting in winter. it is closed dusk to down. shoreline would be open day and night.

You mean I've been winter commuting for the past 13 winters on a trail that is unsuitable for winter commuting?! I really wish I would have found this out earlier. Lord knows how many times I did it and I didn't even notice.

Yeah, technically, Stevens Creek Trail (like other parks and trails) is open from 6:00 a.m. to one-half hour after sunset.

Web Link